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Expose kids to all the different languages and cultures out there. Sometimes they just don’t know!

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Occasional Paper Series

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Occasional Paper Series #39

Max Vázquez-Domínguez, Denise Dávila, and Silvia Noguerón-Liu
In today's political climate, supporting the needs of young children from Latinx immigrant families has become increasingly difficult at the community, institutional, state, and federal levels. This essay is about a group of Latinx families who participated in an innovative early literacy program at a county public library branch in the migration setting of the U.S. Southeast known as the New Latino Diaspora (Hamann, Wortham, Murillo, 2015). We describe the program and its role in building a safe and welcoming environment for Latinx students and their families. We include the voices of the librarian and parents who had never before participated in a family literacy series for Spanish-speaking immigrants. We conclude with a discussion about factors that foster an inclusive community space for educational experiences.
Creating Space Within the Public Commons
We, Denise, Max, and Silvia acknowledge the key role of the public library in building a healthy community (Cabello & Butler, 2017) as it tries to meet many of the needs of the individuals in the region (Morris, 2011). We view the library as a public common in which community members dwell in its communal spaces, share materials, and access a range of services (Didakis & Phillips, 2013). We agree with Cabello and Butler (2017) who argue that libraries can strengthen communities by connecting with individuals and families. As Latinx scholars of educational theory and practice, we collaborated with the main public library in our community of northern Georgia. With the support of the children's library staff, we initiated a bilingual family literacy program to create an inviting atmosphere at the library in which immigrant families might choose to spend time.

In the process of developing our family literacy program, Cuentos para la familia (Stories for the Family), we took an architectural stance toward building a safe, home-like learning environment that involved both material components (e.g., bodies, tables, books) and expressive components (e.g., language, symbols, gestures, postures) (De Landa, 2006). To try and help the library feel like a home, we thought through possible additive interactions that could build experiences between families and the architectural space so that the library could become "an extension of the inhabitant, absorbing preferences, customs and rituals" (Heidegger, 1975 as cited by Didakis & Phillips, 2013, p. 308). Our objective was not simply to house a program for families but to foster an environment in which immigrant families might feel as though the library was an extension of their homes.
Read the Full Essay

About the Authors

Dr. Max Vazquez Dominguez is an assistant professor of science at the University of North Georgia. He has worked in numerous science programs with middle school science teachers, TESOL teachers, emergent bilingual students and their families. He has also worked in Mexico training pre-service and in-service teachers in science in urban and rural regions. His research interests include using the emergent bilingual students' interests and passions in the teaching/learning process, family involvement, science and soccer, the use of the space to enhance science learning, and bilingualism in education.

Denise Dávila is an Assistant Professor of Literacy and Children's Literature at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research focuses on the inclusion of Latinx and diverse children's literature in intergenerational, interdisciplinary, and community-based literacy programs for children and families.

Silvia Noguerón-Liu is an Assistant Professor of Literacy Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder. In her instruction and scholarship, Dr. Noguerón-Liu aims to create learning environments where teachers capitalize on the knowledge of culturally and linguistically diverse students. Her projects-conducted in traditional and new migration settings-document the affordances of digital resources for Latino families and the transnational funds of knowledge parents mobilize in literacy practices with young children.

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Max Vázquez-Domínguez, Denise Dávila & Silvia Noguerón-Liu - Safe Spaces in Libraries - Bank Street College of Education

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Skip to content Occasional Paper Series #39 Max Vázquez-Domínguez, Denise Dávila, and Silvia Noguerón-Liu In today's political climate, supporting the needs of young children from Latinx immigrant families has become increasingly difficult at the community, institutional, state, and federal levels.

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Giving students a "peek in" on how classrooms around the world engage in multi languages and how they embrace them...

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Giving students a "peek in" on how classrooms around the world engage in multi languages and how they embrace them...

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Bringing in diverse books into the classroom that provide different languages for students to learn from.

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Turn the tables- access a variety of languages as a part of learning

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Give students opportunities to talk/write/read in their native language

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Give students opportunities to talk/write/read in their native language

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Surprising students by speaking Spanish to them... especially when they initially think you don't know Spanish because you're not in Dual Language... 

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Surprising students by speaking Spanish to them... especially when they initially think you don't know Spanish because you're not in Dual Language... 

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The power of yet “they don’t know that in English... yet”

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Make it clear to your students that you see their bi/multilingualism as a strength. Provide opportunities for them to show off.

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Code-Meshing & Writing Instruction Article

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Code-Meshing & Writing Instruction Article

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Code-meshing writing activity ideas and code-meshing text ideas

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Code-meshing and Writing Instruction Article.pdf

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Honor students' linguistic repertoires... invite them to use their languages in the classroom space... make an effort to learn their language from them 

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Honor students' linguistic repertoires... invite them to use their languages in the classroom space... make an effort to learn their language from them 

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Celebrate it as a "superpower." When we speak and think in multiple languages we are creating multiple pathways in our brains. We are double smart!

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Celebrate it as a "superpower." When we speak and think in multiple languages we are creating multiple pathways in our brains. We are double smart!

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Allow students to translanguage in their expression (written and oral). They can use the full extent of their vocab

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I think not only noticing our own use of labels, but also those around us. Maybe we could call ourselves out when we use them and hope that those around us catch on!

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I think not only noticing our own use of labels, but also those around us. Maybe we could call ourselves out when we use them and hope that those around us catch on!

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Invite stories, images, and words. Be curious.

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Positioning students as experts of language so they can learn from one another.

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Eva                          Provide opportunities of talk that empower students' languages

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Eva                          Provide opportunities of talk that empower students' languages

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Connect sliding glass door books to our instructions. Provide opportunities for kids to share their own cultures and family routines

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Refer to students by their name not their label.
So when someone asks, "have you done your EL paperwork?"
Say, "did you mean have I done my paperwork for my scholars who are labeled ELs?"

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Stop using labels to refer to students. Use their names and describe them by their strengths. 

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Stop using labels to refer to students. Use their names and describe them by their strengths. 

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teaching students how to use their L1 in academic settings

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teaching students how to use their L1 in academic settings